Unemployed Veterens Factoid
February 3, 2012
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Yesterday, the White House detailed its new Veterans Jobs Corps that will put 20,000 vets to work over the next five years. Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric K. Shinseki described it as a “bold new effort” to lower the unemployment rate for veterans. And Interior Secretary Ken Salazar suggested that the program – aimed at preserving and restoring national parks — is based on the FDR-era Civilian Conservation Corps.
UCubed has been pushing that idea for two years. So we should be ecstatic. But the public relations value of those announcements far outweigh their real impact. 20,000 jobs divided by 5 year equals 4,000 veterans get jobs each year.
In January, 815,000 veterans were unemployed – 481,000 or 60 percent of them were Gulf War II-era veterans. And that’s according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The mismatch between problem, resources allocated and results is simply stunning.
